The invention relates to branching in personal computer entertainment, computer-based learning, interactive media, electric amusement devices, improvisational theater, computer generation of animated cartoons, and video games. It provides a method and apparatus for interactively invoking a sequence of events which form a narrative. Players simply introduce nouns into narrative settings. These nouns advance the plot by responding to the environment, or by other elements within the setting responding to it.
Interactive narratives have been defined in many different ways, (see U.S. Pat. No. 5,676,551). This invention allows users of a narrative to explore ‘what if’ scenarios in a manner never available before. ‘What if’ scenarios are the strength of the interactive narrative. Many people who enjoy linear narratives, such as books and theater, often wish the story had followed a different path. They want to know what would happen if the story had progressed differently. They wish they could choose the course of a story. Interactive narratives offer ‘what if’ scenarios, and thereby a powerful dimension to the art of storytelling. By opening alternate paths through a story, the user experiences more depth from the story. In linear storytelling, the main character is the prime mover of the action and the path of the story. Interactive fiction strives to place that power into the minds of the audience.